Proposition 8 passed in California. This week the Pope referred to the need for an "ecology of man" to save the world from homosexuality as tantamount to that of saving the rainforest. AND our messianic president-elect chose homophobic Christian phenom Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. Oh yeah -- and a 28 year-old San Francisco woman was brutally gang-raped and beaten because of her sexuality. That story didn't quite make the CNN headlines this morning. AP reported today that after being verbally harrassed due to her lesbian identity, the woman endured what Police Lt. Mark Gagan described as "beyond fathomable" and that "the level of trauma - physical and emotional - [she] suffered is extreme." Lisa Leff reported:
The 45-minute attack began when one of the men approached the woman as she crossed the street, struck her with a blunt object, ordered her to disrobe and sexually assaulted her with the help of the other men.
When the group saw another person approaching, they forced the victim back into her car and took her to a burned-out apartment building, where she was raped again inside and outside the vehicle. The assailants took her wallet and drove off in her car. Officers found the car abandoned two days later.
Scarcely a month ago, I waxed both optimistic and surprisingly patriotic as I watched Obama deliver his acceptance speech. And I can't say that the sentiment has entirely worn off. It hasn't. But I can't shake the icky creepy-crawliness that the overwhelming idealism circulating post-election is little more than a temporary analgesic, falsely numbing the country just long enough for the momentum to wear off. We are not so stoned that we are completely insensitive - empty pockets across the country attest to that; yet there is something very seductive in aggrandizing the potential for change solely because of the new administration's diverse appearance. I write this to remind myself as much as anyone: 2009 still looks better than 2008. I can't deny that. But 2009 still begins in a country that unequally distributes access to citizenship based on race, class, gender, and sexuality. As a good friend of mine says so frequently, "You can't gild a turd." Things still suck. Yet there was an undeniable sign of political movement this fall. My fear is that it will simply be a transient phenomenon. My hope is that it won't.
And the signs in that department aren't necessarily dismal. It's looking like Proposition 8 might be overturned as early as March and the economy is bad enough to keep people tuned in. It's hard to ignore the loss of nearly 300,000 jobs in November. There is a personal-political component to unemployment that defies otherwise divisive categories. But in that same way, it is extremely important to remember the personal-political face of all forms of discrimination that exist across the country. Nationwide homophobia is not only reflected in measures such as Prop 8, but in the real and daily harm done to members of the LGBTQ community like that of today's story out of San Francisco. A woman was raped. Multiple times. The acknowledgment of Proposition 8's unconstitutionality does not signal the end of homophobia. Barack Obama's election does not signal the end of racism. We still have lots to do and far to go.
-- Andrea
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2 comments:
Great post. Idealism is a complicated thing: any political movement needs to tap into it and sustain it in order to survive, but it can lead to the equivalent of doing a victory dance before you've won anything. Obama's victory represents nothing more than an opportunity for real change; if "Generation O" can't keep both their idealism and their resolve running high, an Obama presidency likely won't amount to much.
Obama's persistent message in the campaign was, "This isn't about me." There are practical limits to how much even the president can do to prevent future horrific incidents such as the one described here. It takes a mass of people, working together, committed to changing society.
Exactly! My fear is that Americans, particularly all the young ones who mobilized last fall, will be content enough with an action that as you put it is only "an opportunity for real change." I'll be personally elated if that's not the case, but what nags me is the thought that the symbolic change is enough to placate most Americans back into apathy. We'll just go back into hibernation. Brains off mode.
Thanks for commenting on the post, too!
-- Andrea
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